if you got out of dairying?

whelan1 · 10-02-2010 06:53PM #1

what would you do , seeing as how there is very little employment anywhere else what are the alternatives to working our butts off for nothing

aristo · 10-02-2010 10:47PM

Got out of dairying just over a year ago, sucklers went the year before and now slowly phasing out the cattle, cut back on rented ground, have alot less inputs, just concentrating more on tillage which is looking like a third catastrophic year in a row!
I dont think there are any promising alternatives, creamery's/factories/millers see that farmers will still produce at a loss or at just breakeven or bearly above, why would they increase prices to us and reduce their margins.
sorry for the off topic rant!

dar31 · 10-02-2010 10:51PM

ya getting off the ship before she sinks:D:D

snowman707 · 10-02-2010 11:04PM

whelan1 wrote: »

what would you do , seeing as how there is very little employment anywhere else what are the alternatives to working our butts off for nothing

suckling and sheep

BUT

I have no intention of getting out of dairying, it still looks the best of a bad lot especially post 2013.

red bull · 11-02-2010 02:15AM

Im a dairy farmer , many of my friends got out, got over the culture shock of seven days a week work.
Mixed farming is there answer, sheep bring in a continous income with sale of lambs early in year and weanlings in back end. They say they can put single farm payment in the bank,expenses are so small compared to dairying.
Maybe I like hard work, but I would like a new life too.
Like you I just dont know but Im not going to work hard for very little for long more

whelan1 · 11-02-2010 07:33AM

it would be very hard to face in to another year like last year

johngalway · 11-02-2010 08:56AM

How does continuing on with dairying but changing from cows to goats look? 1 litre of Glenisk goats milk was €2.50 in Tescos the last day (I don't shop there, GF does).

Pacoa · 11-02-2010 05:34PM

I was reading up on goats last year and basicly I think the problem with them will be getting good ones and getting enough of them. How long before the goat milk market is oversaturated?
I think if ya give up dairying the only option is sell up and put the money in the bank or else buy houses and rent em out. There no money in any other enterprise. The price of milk will rise this year.

Ford4000 · 11-02-2010 06:54PM

red bull wrote: »

Im a dairy farmer , many of my friends got out, got over the culture shock of seven days a week work.
Mixed farming is there answer, sheep bring in a continous income with sale of lambs early in year and weanlings in back end. They say they can put single farm payment in the bank,expenses are so small compared to dairying.
Maybe I like hard work, but I would like a new life too.
Like you I just dont know but Im not going to work hard for very little for long more

I would agree with u there, i know a guy that has 40-50 dairy cows and fattens bulls and hi meal bill for 2009 was a shade off 19k which is a hell ofa lot of money and he is finished in reps this yr, he is looking into a mixed st up in a big way as he does keep sheep as he is but the intnsity of feeding for dairy and fatting enterprises is astonomical !

mossfort · 11-02-2010 06:58PM

i think the reason many people dont want to give up dairying is that once you sell off all your stock and equiptment if there is ever a price increase in the future it will be very expensive to set up again.
a lot of the older farmers who made serious money from dairying in the past have a good bank balance to tide them over for a few years more till they decide what they are going to do.
i think a lot of farmers will decide to give it up when the new single farm payment is announced in 2013.

whelan1 · 11-02-2010 07:06PM

yes but what are the alternatives for young dairy farmers ?

irishh_bob · 11-02-2010 07:29PM

Pacoa wrote: »

I was reading up on goats last year and basicly I think the problem with them will be getting good ones and getting enough of them. How long before the goat milk market is oversaturated?
I think if ya give up dairying the only option is sell up and put the money in the bank or else buy houses and rent em out. There no money in any other enterprise. The price of milk will rise this year.

agree about sticking money in savings , not about sticking it in bricks and mortar , property as an investment will be a dead duck for at least another decade , thier is a cultural shift ( and about time ) away from it

dar31 · 11-02-2010 08:27PM

whelan1 wrote: »

yes but what are the alternatives for young dairy farmers ?

instead of getting out of dairy
how about looking into alternative methods of production
less labour intensive, lower imputs the usual stuff you dont have to go down the die hard spring/grass/300kg route, but instead take all that is good in each system and make it fit your own farm
change or die time is fast approaching for us all, whether we like it or not.

i don't plan on leaving dairy for a long time to come, a couple of bumps along the road wont do it, ill just adjust my mind set and my work practices to over come these.
farming is a business from here on, and the sole focus is a return from that business. enjoying what you do is a great help.
you either work for the farm or make the farm work for you.

Pacoa · 11-02-2010 10:24PM

agree about sticking money in savings , not about sticking it in bricks and mortar , property as an investment will be a dead duck for at least another decade

Well yes property is not for the faint hearted but this might be a good time to buy, you'd certainly have bargaining power and you'd be buying with cash. Leaving money in the bank might not be the safest either the way our banks are.

whelan1 · 12-02-2010 08:45AM

suppose if the weather was good this year it would make a difference but if the milk price stays crap i cant see myself at dairying for much longer

reilig · 12-02-2010 10:40AM

whelan1 wrote: »

yes but what are the alternatives for young dairy farmers ?

I've quoted this before, so I apologise if I'm ranting on. I have always thought that a great alternative enterprise would be growing biomass like willow or elephant grass. All the power stations that currently run on peat (mostly concentrated in the Midlands I suppose) have by EU law to be running on 50% bio fuel by 2013. This was well publicised around here when the Lanesboro power station was being renewed a couple of years ago.

However, it lies with the government to get this off the ground. Firstly they need to be enforcing these privately owned power stations (Lanesboro, Shannonbridge, Ferban etc) to comply with the planningh conditions that they were given. There also needs to be a proper system set up that would allow farmers to sell bio fuel to these power plants. Biofuel has to be cheaper to produce than peat too - and weather conditions would have much less affect on it.

I'm not one of these people who thinks that there should be a grant for the establishment of bio fuel crops. I firmly believe that if there is a stable market for it that would give farmers a small margin for their efforts, then Farmers would invest in establishing the crops.

Politics have so much to with these things though. A lot of politicians love the idea that we could be more self sufficient with our home grown bio fuels. But they also know that the more bio fuels that we produce, the less food we will produce. Food will become more expensive, electricity will be cheaper (well we won't have to pay a carbon tax on it anyway).

There are opportunities there and always will be. The price of oil is going to go up. That's the only thing we can be sure of.

pakalasa · 12-02-2010 10:56AM

I was over in the east of England recently, around Lancashire and that. I was amazed by the amount of elephant grass and willow I saw growing there.

djmc · 12-02-2010 11:44AM

I thought about growing a small bit of willow cutting it with a fingerbar mower
and drying in a shed and chipping in shed when dry using some in my chip boiler and sell the rest.
I think its two early to do i on a big scale as most people use oil and will do so until its very costly and scarce.
I too am getting sick of dairying and being a slave for my co-op and tescos.
Forestry is an other opion but would need other income, at least would have time for it.

reilig · 12-02-2010 12:51PM

djmc wrote: »

I thought about growing a small bit of willow cutting it with a fingerbar mower
and drying in a shed and chipping in shed when dry using some in my chip boiler and sell the rest.
I think its two early to do i on a big scale as most people use oil and will do so until its very costly and scarce.
I too am getting sick of dairying and being a slave for my co-op and tescos.
Forestry is an other opion but would need other income, at least would have time for it.

Finger bar mower will not cut it unless you chop them annually. But one year's growth would be too soft - full of moisture and a poor burner.

But if you're interested in buying willow have a look at

http://www.bowhayestrees.co.uk

I'm looking at buying some willow or poplar myself from them so that I will have fuel for my gasifying boiler for years to come.

jfh · 12-02-2010 02:27PM

heard a guy talking about contract rearing heifer calves for other dairy farmers using both your sheds & the dairy experience

whelan1 · 12-02-2010 02:37PM

dat would sound appealing to me or what about buying 100 angus calves and rearing them?

F.D · 12-02-2010 05:13PM

I must be the only fool around i am actually looking hard at going into dairying just to air my views, Willow Etc, would be a good option but i know for a fact Bord Na Mona are trialling a lot of crops that will grow in the bogs that they can harvest for the powerstations, my fear would be that they would perfect it and they would have more than enough area to grow the stuff on a massive scale and more or less push the farmer out to keep there profits up, Trees, the first 20 years look great but i think people really need to look beyond that and see what the returns will be for the next 20 years and costs or replanting etc, also its permanant so no change if it goes bad, then Cattle We buy in cattle and finish them there is little or nothing out of them and if it wasnt for the SFP etc there would be no money. At least with a cow you get a calf and if your milking a cheque every month for your efforts,
Like i said its only my view

cjpm · 12-02-2010 05:31PM

F.D wrote: »

At least with a cow you get a calf and if your milking a cheque every month for your efforts,
Like i said its only my view

While i acknowledge that you get 12 milk cheques a month and calf sales, the simple fact is that for most people for the last few years the cheques going out outweigh those coming in.

Feed, Fertilizer, Vet, AI, Bank repayments, Contractor, etc etc.... The costs are massive and the current milk price isn't enough to cover these, not to mind the most important thing - making money for all the time that goes into it. It's fair drudgery for pittance....

whelan1 · 12-02-2010 06:42PM

also you have to live and put food on the table which many people are finding difficult this year

djmc · 12-02-2010 07:31PM

My cheques were gone out before the came in overdraft maxed out credit card maxed out only for herselfs job could not put food on the table.
At least with forestry,contract calf rearing,bio fuels, you would have time for
a job elsewhere if you could get one.
Could see a lot of people leaving dairying if we got another year like last year
Relig also see http://www.futureforests.net/ for willow cuttings there in bantry co cork.
Dont know if I could get a contractor in to cut one or two acres nobody close to me grows it but the fact it only has to be cut once every 3 years is a plus

aristo · 16-02-2010 01:56PM

whelan1 wrote: »

dat would sound appealing to me or what about buying 100 angus calves and rearing them?

How much are angus calves selling for at the minute?

whelan1 · 16-02-2010 02:07PM

after reading the front of the farming independent today i am now looking at all options:mad:

djmc · 19-02-2010 12:23PM

this thread has really put me thinking
With peak oil and growing demand wood fuel price should go up
Doing the maths if I planted half my land for forestry grant keeped a few livestock maybe organic for SFP and maybe get off farm job even part time.
I would have a lot more money for less work and weekends off.
Could buy or hire chipper for thinnings.
Is this short term thinking and would I be kicking my ass if milk is making 50c a litre in a few years and some big new oil well has been found

johngalway · 19-02-2010 01:25PM

djmc wrote: »

Is this short term thinking and would I be kicking my ass if milk is making 50c a litre in a few years and some big new oil well has been found

Can't see the future so can't say for sure. What I would say is that the more people get out of food production here, the better things will be for those who stay in, IMO.

I saw for the past two years locally, thousands of ewes, ewe hoggets and ewe lambs sold off. These weren't the usual surplus, or ones considered unfit for their own flock, these were quality animals. This year, sheep price went up significantly compared to other years.

Again, the health warning is this is just what I'm seeing locally. But I stick by the more growing timber, fuel crops, the better for the food producers.

One more thing, the huge drawback to forestry for me is what the land is like in the aftermath. I don't think it can be reversed in a practical sense to what it was before.

if you got out of dairying?

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